


Worth

by adelagia



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 12:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/748592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelagia/pseuds/adelagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tableau is a familiar one, though this time she's done him the courtesy of lying in wait on his dingy sofa with the lights on, sans Backup. Coda to 3x05, <i>President Evil</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth

**Author's Note:**

> It didn't sit right with me that Weevil never got an apology for being wrongfully accused, so this is my contribution to the pool of apology fics. Many thanks to sarea_okelani for a) getting me into VM fandom, and b) being such a fantastic beta. ♥

His hackles are up before he even sets foot inside the apartment. 

The tableau is a familiar one, though this time she's done him the courtesy of lying in wait on his dingy sofa with the lights on, sans Backup. He's not sure which thought he should favor: that she trusts him enough to be here by herself this time, or that when she had come a few nights earlier, she had felt the need to bring an attack dog with her, _just in case_. It's the latter thought that still nettles, that makes him fold his arms across his chest, battle-ready. 

Veronica stands, smoothing her palms over her jeans, nervous. That's new. 

She tries for something of a smile. "The cockroaches recognized me from last time, so they, um..." she says, gesturing lamely to the apartment at large. It's a joke that was meant to cut the first time, and it doesn't land on the second go-round. 

"Yeah? I'll have a word with them about the lax security," Weevil snaps. He shuts the door and throws his keys to a side table in the corner. "What do you want?"

"I got my necklace back," she says bracingly. 

"And I take it you want me to throw you a parade?" 

If his voice is flat of affect and his stare hard, Weevil thinks he's earned it. He's played (relatively) nice throughout this whole ordeal, mostly because he knew she was the only person who could find out who really did it and, by default, get him out of lock-up, but he's pretty much run out of nice now. More than two years he's had her back, and he still reeks of _suspect_ to her. Yeah, he's done a few things this side of the law he's not proud of, and a few more he's happy to lay claim to, but for her to even entertain the idea that he would _hurt_ her, that he would be so malicious as to rip a piece of Lilly from her? Well, it stings, to say the least. 

"Look, Weevil..." There's an apology on her face, but the words seem to be sticking in her throat. 

He moves past her to the adjoining kitchenette to pull a bottle of beer from the fridge. "I'm a busy man, Veronica. I got toilets to unclog, stuck-up college kids' throw-up to clean, and, oh yeah, after that I have to go steal some of my _other_ friends' most precious possessions," he says. He lifts his palms and adds, "Allegedly. So, if you wanna talk? Talk. Otherwise--" He lifts the bottle to indicate the front door. 

Veronica's head cocks to the side, struck by something. "You--" she says, looking a little confused. After a second, it resolves into a wan, cautious smile. "You'd still call me a friend? After everything I said to you?" 

A terse laugh rides out on an exhale, and Weevil shakes his head. Of all the things she would get stuck on. "You know what the difference between you and me is?" he asks, his thumb tracing the sharp ridges of the bottle cap.

It doesn't take a genius to know that there's a too-clever quip racing to the tip of her tongue, but wisely, for once, she holds it in. 

_I know what loyalty is_ , he wants to say. But he lets her off the hook, as always, with a dry, "I'm an optimist." 

"So you think there might be hope for me yet?"

"I've been burned before too, V. But I know when to cut my losses," he says, no explanations necessary on that front, "and I know when there's still something worth sticking around for." 

The truth is that he doesn't need her in his life. It's valuable to have someone like her on your side and anywhere from potentially embarrassing to lethal if she's not, but he survived seventeen years perfectly fine pre-Veronica Mars and he can go seventeen more just the same. A girl like her doesn't have many friends; she scares people away before they get too close, and the small handful that do stay put aren't the kind who can get down and dirty in the trenches with her. Weevil can. So the truth is that he doesn't need her in his life, but he wants to be in hers because _she_ needs him there, whether or not she acknowledges it. 

"So..." she says slowly, eyeing him as though they might be speaking different languages, hazarding a rough translation, "you forgive me?"

The other truth is that he knew he was going to do just that as soon as he saw her sitting on his couch. But he's going to keep that to himself and try not to think too hard about it, because he's still got a big, black hole of a soft spot for her that's been there ever since she casually called him a dork to his face. 

"I don't know," he says carelessly. "I ain't heard an apology yet." 

"Ah." Her lips press together. "Are you going to make me beg?"

Weevil shrugs, looking off to the side like he's considering it. "Nah," he decides after a while. She's here, and she's too proud to say the words, but he can see it in her all the same, so he's ready to let this go and let it be ancient history. Besides, it's not in his job description to take her down a few pegs, not when it seems like half of Neptune keeps trying to do exactly that, and he's not going to be yet another person she needs to armor herself against. So he raises his eyebrows suggestively and looks her up and down, the way he used to, back in their high school days when they were still keeping score of their mutual back-scratching. "Though I can think of a few other ways to get you to beg."

She tries, not very hard, to suppress a smile and an eye-roll. "Aaand we're back to our regularly scheduled programming," she announces to the room, shaking her head. When she meets his eyes again, she says steadily, "I'm sorry. You deserved better from me." 

Weevil nods in tacit acceptance, a corner of his mouth lifting. 

Veronica holds the half-smile in place with one of her own for a moment, then blinks away. "I-- should get going. School night," she says, as if anything as trivial as higher education has ever held her back from doing whatever the hell she wants. 

Holding the door open for her, he follows her out into the night, to where her Saturn shines a little too bright under a streetlamp. Set among the garbage and graffiti, it screams _One of these things just doesn't belong_. "You shoulda brought Backup," Weevil says, when the car lets out a cheerful chirp with her thumb on the unlock button. "This neighborhood ain't exactly soccer mom central." 

"Come on, you know I don't go anywhere without my trusty Taser. Anyway, what, are you afraid that being seen with me is going to ruin your street cred?" she asks, articulating the last two words with a sweet, crisp diction like she's the whitest person alive. 

"Little too late for that, V," Weevil says blandly. "Been saving your ass for two years now. Word's out." 

She looks at him expectantly. 

"What?"

Veronica inclines her head forward and her hands come up, like she's still waiting for some other shoe to drop. "You mention my ass and then... nothing? No references to tapping, hitting _or_ plowing? You've changed, man. Prison made you soft," she sighs. 

It skirts the edge between amusing and insulting, like she wasn't just in his apartment apologizing for almost sending him back for another stint; the girl rebounds fast, he'll give her that. In any case, he isn't insulted, and she wasn't expecting him to be. It's comfortable, where they both like to be, pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior until the lines smear. 

"If you wanted to see how hard I can get, all you had to do was ask," he says, leaning in just a fraction and leveling a provocative look at her from under his lashes. 

She flicks a bored glance at his belt. "You can't tell, but I'm secretly swooning." 

"Let's be real, chica. I can always tell. Why else would you come groveling at my doorstep--"

Veronica holds up a hand, affronted. "Doorstep? I broke and entered. Can we at least acknowledge my fiendishly good lock-picking skills?"

He gives her a short, "Yeah. You're a true criminal mastermind." 

She curtsies, and they share a brief smile, amused with themselves, as it so often ends up when it's just the two of them. 

"Or," Weevil suggests, "are you just really good at going to hardware stores and asking them real sweet to make copies of keys you stole? Maybe out of a janitor's locker?"

Caught, Veronica bites her lip. "There is also that."

He can practically see the wheels churning inside her head as she tries to find some kind of legitimate excuse for copying his house key other than to ambush him in the dark. Maybe someday he'll learn to mind his own business and let her find her own way out of these situations, but today is apparently not that day. "Keep it," he says. "Save you the trouble of doing it again. Next time you're feeling lonely..."

She gives him the side-eye and slides into her car. Conspicuously, she also neglects to surrender the key. "Say goodnight, Weevil." 

Weevil shuts the door for her and watches the Saturn sail down the street until it turns the corner and out of sight. He smiles to himself. "See you around, V."


End file.
